The TATA Steel Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) has launched the SSP Chawrasia Invitational presented by TAKE as a gesture to honour Indian golfing great SSP Chawrasia.
The tournament will be staged at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC), SSP’s home course, from Tuesday through December 17 and offers a prize purse of Rs 1 crore.
The stellar field for the tournament this year will feature event host SSP Chawrasia, along with other leading Indian names including Anirban Lahiri, Gaganjeet Bhullar, Rashid Khan, Ajeetesh Sandhu, Viraj Madappa, Veer Ahlawat, Karandeep Kochhar, Chikkarangappa, Udayan Mane, Yuvraj Singh Sandhu (PGTI Ranking Leader) and Manu Gandas (2nd on the PGTI Ranking), to name a few. Yuvraj and Manu have a record five wins each to their name this season.
The leading foreign names in the field are those of Sri Lankans Mithun Perera, N Thangaraja, Anura Rohana, as well as Bangladeshis Jamal Hossain, Badal Hossain, Md Akbar Hossain and Nepal’s Sukra Bahadur Rai.
The other prominent names participating from the host city of Kolkata besides SSP Chawrasia and Viraj Madappa, are Sunit Chowrasia, Divyanshu Bajaj, Shankar Das, Mohammad Sanju, Arjun Puri and Raju Ali Mollah.
Chawrasia is the second Indian professional golfer after Jeev Milkha Singh to have a PGTI event named in his honour. SSP has a long list of accomplishments including being one of only two Indian golfers to have won four DP World Tour titles. SSP has won six titles on the Asian Tour and is a two-time Indian Open champion. Chawrasia has the distinction of having represented India at the Rio Olympics 2016 and the World Cup of Golf 2016. He also represented Team Asia at the EurAsia Cup in 2016 and 2018. SSP, a winner of 17 professional titles, was honoured with the Arjuna Award in 2017.
Tournament host SSP Chawrasia said, “I’m extremely excited about hosting the inaugural SSP Chawrasia Invitational presented by TAKE. It’s a great honour to have an event on the PGTI named after me. I would like to thank Mr. Srinivasan HR, TAKE, PGTI and RCGC for supporting this event.
“The rich prize purse on offer, depth in the field and the excellent playing conditions provided by the host venue RCGC promise a week of top quality golfing action. I’m also looking forward to performing well at my home course. I wish the players all the best.”
